


Running Up That Hill

by hazel_wand



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_wand/pseuds/hazel_wand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry had spent the first years after the war waiting and trying to fall in love with Ginny and had been unable to. It had turned out all right, sort of. Ginny had settled down with the Harpies’ Seeker and Harry, well, Harry had Draco. Sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Up That Hill

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slightly-altered version of a story I wrote for the HD-Inspired Animagus fest a few years ago.

_“Let me tell you a story,” the young man says._

_Her fingers itch. She could write about his tone, his voice. He drawls lazily, indulgently. He does not need to be here. He does not need to be anywhere, and all places are graced with his presence. She could write about the way he lounges on the pastel pink chair and the way his long slim fingers idly stroke the fabric of the fuchsia cushions._

_She is an author. She could write reams –_ poetry _– about this man. What stories she could tell! She knows all his secrets. He comes here to tell her them, to brag. She can guess at why he comes. She speculates. She knows. She can weave his life in words, and the public would sigh or laugh or mock – whatever she wanted them to do. She could take the morsels of his life and offer them up to be feasted upon._

_“Would you like to hear my story?” the young man asks. Lips curved. He knows she wants to hear. She knows that he will tell it anyway._

_He speaks. She leans forward, hands greedy for a quill. She could start a newspaper here, she tells him. She knows many secrets. She knows what the house elves do in the kitchens when no one is looking. She knows what has happened to Madam Grigson in the next bed down._

_And then the thoughts drift out of her head, washed away like letters formed in sand. She clutches on to the last tendrils of meaning, but they too trickle from between her fingers and she is left with the sudden sense that a blade of grass is enormous, feels the tickle of wings at her back, the clacking sound of pincers._

_The young man leaves. What had he been saying? Settling back into her day chair in the Janus Thicky ward, Rita Skeeter frowns. She does not know._

 

The Auror department was in mourning.

They should be used to it, Harry thought. Only a month ago Dawlish, the Head of Department, had been killed, and Harry had to suppress a shudder as he remembered the body and the letters scrawled in blood. It made him think of the opening of the Chamber of Secrets. Blindly, he reached for Ginny’s hand and held her fingers tightly between his for a moment.

She squeezed back, and he glanced over at her. Her hair was scraped back into a functional bun and she wore her red Auror robes with her chin thrust forward, as though she were going into battle – much the same way, in fact, as she had worn her Holyhead Harpie kit before she’d swapped careers. Now her focus was on the patch of bare earth before them; a tear was making its slow path down her cheek, crossing a patch of skin still shiny pink from the morning’s skirmish. She wiped the tear away with her free hand.

To their left, Amy Scott was sniffing loudly, her hands clutching at her plump cheeks. Harry shook his head. Amy had only been part of the squad for a few months. He marvelled at the strength of her attachment, the depth of her grief. She certainly hadn’t cried this much for Dawlish.

“Honestly, it was only a cat,” he said at last, feeling the need to inflict reason upon the group. 

“ _She_ was only a cat, Harry,” Ginny corrected primly. “You have no heart.”

Ginny had broken up with Harry, a long time ago, for that very reason. These days it barely hurt, the fact that Harry had spent the first years after the war waiting and trying to fall in love with Ginny and had been unable to. It had turned out all right, sort of. Ginny had settled down with the Harpies’ Seeker and Harry, well, Harry had Draco. Sometimes. 

“It’d be a fantastic time to murder someone, wouldn’t it?” said Ron, on Harry’s right. “You know, while the entire Auror department’s burying the office pet.”

“Drusilla was more than a pet,” Ginny told Ron sternly. “She was the heart of the force.”

“She was a cat,” Harry repeated, and Ginny let go of his hand to hit him.

Actually, Harry was sorry that Drusilla was gone. She had been a companion on the late nights of paperwork when even Ron had buggered off home. Harry had never been much of a cat lover – who would be after meeting Mrs Norris? – but he was a little moved and slightly bemused by the mass grief of the whole department. Drusilla had been there as long as any of them could remember: decades of Auror office paperwork had the same tabby cat hair shed over them. Legend had it that Mad Eye had brought her in as a kitten on his first day with the force.

Harry hated funerals, even one for a cat of whom he’d been begrudgingly fond. The too-small grave reminded him forcefully of Dobby’s, and the shadowed, saddened faces brought back the ghosts of grief from directly after the war, and Lupin, and Tonks and _Fred_. He swung his gaze upwards to the darkening sky and watched the black outlines of birds sweeping against the grey clouds. It was getting late, and he’d have to go back to the office tonight to finish off the paperwork from this morning’s fight.

“You coming for a drink, Harry?” Gordon Wright asked, as the group of red-clad Aurors moved away from the tiny graveside. “Is it true that Shacklebolt’s offered to pay, like? In honour of Drusilla.”

Amy Scott blew her nose wetly into her handkerchief. Perhaps she’d been a Hufflepuff, Harry thought. They tended to get overly upset about things.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Harry said to Gordon, “so I very much doubt it.” He shifted his weight, still sore from the fight, and felt very separate from the rest of them, even Ron, who was checking his watch and frowning, and Ginny who was patting Amy on the back and rolling her eyes up at Harry as she did. Ginny had never liked girls who cried. 

“I’m off,” Ron said, with a final glance at his watch. “Do you want to come and say hi to Hermione?”

“Best not,” Harry said, shrugging his shoulders to try and release some of the stiffness from them. “I’ve got h-paperwork to do.” He’d nearly said homework, and was reminded forcefully of his school-life where homework was a necessity and an excuse. It wasn’t so different from paperwork really. At least Hermione would approve that he was taking his promotion seriously. Harry had been appointed Head Auror (the youngest in a century – _again_ ) after Dawlish was killed. Harry liked his work and was fairly sure he did a good job. Sometimes, though, it was hard to shake the feeling of being the Boy Who Lived standing in a dead man’s shoes.

Ron pulled a face. “Fair enough. You’re coming to Mum and Dad’s on Friday, though? 

“Of course.”

Ron nodded and Disapparated with a loud crack. 

Ginny shook her head. “He’s never worked out how to do it _quietly_ ,” she said, sounding rather pained. Harry wondered if she knew how like her mother she sounded sometimes. He didn’t mention it. While they were both wearing Auror robes he was Ginny’s boss, and telling her she was turning into her mother was bound to provoke an act of insubordination.

“I’ve got to go too,” Ginny said. “Sammy’s expecting me back.” Sammy was the Seeker who Ginny had started seeing when she and Harry had broken up. Harry supposed he would feel more bitter if Sammy wasn’t so likeable, and if Ginny hadn’t had a hard enough time telling her family she was going out with another woman. Even now the Weasleys seemed to think that Ginny’s and Sammy’s wasn’t a proper relationship. Harry felt a fraud every time he stayed silent during these discussions. The only thing that held him back from telling the Weasleys that he was in a relationship with a man was that he wasn’t sure his and Draco’s could be called a relationship.

“I thought the Harpies were still at training camp,” he said.

Ginny grinned. “No! They finished early. I was going to go home early and surprise her, but today’s been a bit hectic, hasn’t it?” 

Harry raised his eyebrows. “That’s putting it lightly. Bloody vampires.”

He always forgot how pretty Ginny was when she smiled. When she was truly happy – in instants like this – it hit him how close he had been to falling in love with her. Ginny’s best smiles made something twist in his chest. They hurt, and Harry hated that he was always made uncomfortable by her in the moments she was happiest. He closed his eyes on images of red-haired children and a world made up of those smiles, and when he opened his eyes again Ginny’s beam was gone.

She took a step closer to him, resting her hand on his arm. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Harry forced the muscles in his face to relax. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just not looking forward to filing everything for tomorrow.”

Ginny frowned. “Can’t it wait? You look like you need a rest.”

He laughed – a dry sound. “Thanks. I’m better off getting it done now. Hermione trained me well.”

Ginny gave a small smile. “It’s a good job she got through to one of you, then: Ron’s still hopeless.”

“Ron does all right,” Harry said automatically.

“He’s okay, I suppose.” Ginny wrinkled her nose. “For a boy.” She took Harry’s other arm and looked up at him sternly. “You do all right too, you know,” she said. “Don’t stay late tonight.”

“Yes sir,” Harry replied. “And you go home before Sammy comes here and clubs me with her broomstick.”

“Yes sir,” she said. She touched her lips to his cheek and gave him a hug. Harry let himself lean into steel and softness. Then, with a quieter crack than Ron’s, she was gone.

Harry cast a last glance at the grave and headed back to the office. He sat at his desk, surveying his kingdom of empty cubicles, and felt tired. 

He thought about sending an owl home just in case. Then he thought better of it. There’d be no one, he told himself, to send it to.

He brooded on this for a moment, and then shook himself out of it. Casting another glance around the Auror floor to make sure it really was deserted, he tapped his wand against one of the drawers in his desk. When anyone opened this drawer without tapping it with Harry’s wand first it was overflowing with a half-eaten sandwich, Droobles Best Blowing Gum wrappers, empty bottles of ink and some scrunched up balls of paper. When Harry opened it now, all that lay in the drawer were three photographs. Harry took them out and placed them on the desk. Black and white, innocuous, he thought for the hundredth time that they didn’t deserve the worry and secrecy he was affording them. He frowned at them again. They were Muggle photographs. One showed Harry and Ginny walking down Diagon Alley. They were off duty, and Ginny was leaning on Harry’s arm. Harry imagined that Ginny had been in the process of tugging on his elbow. In a wizarding photo she would look up at him and her lips would form words. He’d look down, maybe roll his eyes, answer. She might pout or give him a friendly push. 

The photographic forms of Harry and Ginny did none of these things.

In the second photo Harry had Teddy slung upon his shoulders. They were off walking somewhere – Harry couldn’t tell where from the photo, and that frightened him too. Sometimes, if it was Saturday and sunny, Harry would take Teddy and Apparate them to the countryside. The Lake District, peak district, Wales, Scotland, Exmoor. Anywhere. Find a secluded hill and walk up it. Teddy sometimes didn’t walk all the way – he was only seven - but Harry didn’t mind carrying him and Teddy would dig his hands into Harry’s hair and talk Harry through his multi-coloured world for the last hour or so before they went home. It was one of the few things that Harry could do for Teddy that Andromeda could not, and they both loved it.

Harry was not walking up the hill in the picture, and Teddy’s mouth did not move. The picture was frozen. Vulnerable.

The final, most recent picture showed Harry in Muggle London as twilight seeped into night. He wasn’t far from Grimmauld Place. Harry wondered if he’d nipped out to buy milk or something. His head was down, eyes half closed. Unaware. Unalert.

“I can find you,” the nameless, silent photographer was telling Harry. “I can find you when you’re alone. When you’re with those you love most. I can find you when you think you’re safe. You’re not.”

Harry knew that he should have reported these pictures. He knew they were threats. What he didn’t know was whether Dawlish had received similar photographs.

 

Harry had never learnt to expect someone to be waiting for him when he got home – not since he’d stopped living at The Burrow with Ron. Even when things were going as well as they could with Draco (hate had bled to lust had bled to familiarity and whatever else Harry could not name) Harry was never sure of him – never certain. Draco came or didn’t come, stayed for weeks or stayed away for months, and Harry had never been able to work out why or predict when. It was safer – _realistic_ , _practical_ \- not to assume. He was surprised, then, when he came home that night to see Draco sprawled across his side of the bed. Harry tried not to work out whether to be pleased or annoyed that Draco was there. He told himself that he had shut the door quietly and jumped the squeaky stair on the way upstairs out of habit, rather than out of consideration. 

He took his shoes off at the doorway and let his clothes drop as he walked, wincing as his shirt scraped over newly-healed skin, and shivering as his flesh met the cold air. Heating Charms never lasted in Grimmauld Place. Closer to the bed, goose-pimpled and bare to his boxers, Harry stopped to look at the sleeper – all pale skin and paler hair against his pillow. Harry’s pillow. Draco always got in on Harry’s side of the bed, something that Harry had found strange when their relationship was new and confusing. Not, Harry reflected as he padded round to the other side of the bed, that the relationship (if it could be called that) had got any less confusing with age. Before Harry could get under the covers Draco rolled, all loose, sleep-heated limbs, until he was on the side of the bed Harry was about to get into, where he frowned slightly into the cold pillow. 

“Draco?” Harry whispered, but he heard nothing. Trust Draco to be irritating even in sleep. He walked back around the bed and got in on his own side. Slipping under the covers into the bliss of warm sheets, Harry looked over at Draco, at the frowning creases of his forehead and the curve of his lips, for once not curled into a smirk. Like that he looked almost innocent. As though aware of Harry’s eyes upon him, Draco turned once more, pressing his hot chest against Harry’s cold side, and pushing his cheek against Harry’s neck.

“Draco?” Harry murmured again, but Draco just mumbled something unintelligible, his breath warm and damp into Harry’s skin. Harry couldn’t fight against the tide of sleep, of comfort and heat. He shifted slightly, pulling the blankets up further over them both, and let consciousness slip away.

 

When Harry woke up the next morning, it was to Draco rubbing sleepily against him like a cat being petted. For a moment, as sleep drifted slowly from him, Harry enjoyed the warmth and closeness. Then he felt the hardness against his thigh and, though his cock began to harden in answer, he moved away.

Draco immediately stopped pretending to be asleep. “Oh good,” he said. “You’re awake. Shall we have sex then?”

Part of Harry – the part of him that still thought he was nineteen and that sex should happen as much as possible – wanted to say yes without thinking. The rest of Harry – who was definitely not nineteen and who was, in fact, Head Auror and in the middle of a case – checked his watch and swore.

“Shit! I’m going to be late.”

He rolled out of bed. Shoving on his glasses, he snatched up his wand. He’d have to hurry and make do with Cleaning Charms instead of a shower.

Draco sat up. “Where are you going?”

“Work. You know, where you get paid for doing something useful.”

“You can’t go yet. What am I supposed to do?” Harry didn’t have to look at him to know that Draco was scowling: he could _hear_ it. The vestiges of warmth and contentment from the night’s sleep left him. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. It came out as a challenge rather than a question.

Draco, of course, had never liked to back down from challenges. As soon as Harry looked over at him he gestured to his lap.

“I came to see you. I waited for you. I stayed the night, Potter, and not because your bed is comfortable.”

Harry ran his eyes over Draco’s splayed legs, the tented boxers and the exposed chest – skin so pale that close up he’d be able to see the blue veins underneath. Draco was skinny, pasty, all sharp jutting bone and long limbs. Harry should find him unattractive but didn’t. “You mean you came but you haven’t come, is that it?”

“Crude but accurate.” Smirking. In the back of his brain Harry marvelled at how he could want to punch and kiss Draco at the same time. Either option could lead to a full blown argument or spectacular sex, both of which were great stress relievers. Maybe that was why Harry preferred the nights when Draco was there to the nights when he wasn’t.

Harry could leave that white translucent skin red and raised. When he bit down above a vein he was fascinated by the perfect blue imprints his teeth made, could stare at just that patch of skin, wondering at its delicacy, all while Draco moaned and urged beneath him.

That was one good thing about Draco. Harry didn’t feel bad about being vicious around him: Draco was just as vicious back, and sometimes Harry needed that, needed to snarl and to deliberately hurt, to get the anger and frustration out so that he could be good and understanding and useful for the rest of the day.

It was easy, hurting Draco. Or at least being hurtful to Draco – Harry didn’t think that Draco cared enough to be hurt. When Draco was around Harry told himself at least once a day that this didn’t bother him. At least once a day he wondered why it did.

“Sorry,” Harry said, making himself sound cheery. “I’m late. You’ll have to find something else exciting to do with your day.”

Draco slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. Harry turned away. He tried to focus on finding a pair of socks so as not to give Draco the pleasure of watching him touch himself.

“That’s a bore. You were the exciting thing I was planning on doing this morning.”

Harry could feel Draco’s eyes on his back, could picture the movement of his hand. It was turning him on and irritating him at the same time (another combination that only Draco achieved).

“Why would I bother?” he asked, allowing a snap in his voice. “All you do is turn up and expect sex, and you’re not _that_ attractive.”

There was a pause. The room seemed very quiet all of a sudden, and for a brief moment Harry thought he might have got through Draco’s veneer of careless indolence.

Then Draco laughed nastily – not at all the sound he made when Harry pried genuine humour out of him. “I’m so sorry, Potter. Have I hurt your feelings? Should we have faked conversation first? Was I supposed to ask you about your day yesterday? How was your day, Potter?”

Harry yanked on his trousers, turning to face Draco as he pulled up the zip. “I hunted down a vampire cult and then went to a funeral for a cat.”

Draco’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “Seriously, Harry, that was your day?”

“Yeah.” All Harry’s anger seemed to be let out on that huff of breath, and the situation suddenly seemed funny. “Yeah, that was basically it.”

“A funeral for a cat? What’s today – a Puffskein wedding? A budgerigar Bar Mitzvah? Did you at least kill the cat? Was it part of the vampire cult? Was it an undead pussy?” 

Harry smiled despite himself. “It was the office pet.”

“I didn’t even know you had a pet.”

“It was the Aurors’, why should you? And anyway, now we don’t.” 

Draco snorted. “Right.” He frowned at Harry, who was now half dressed. “Are you really going to leave me here to wank on my own?”

“Unless you want to wank with Kreacher,” Harry said, and then rather wished he hadn’t.

Part of him wanted to plunge into the warmth of bed and Draco and enjoy the fact that for this moment they weren’t sniping at each other. That part of him wasn’t Head Auror, though, and Harry got to work in time for the rest of his team to apologise to him for being late.

Later that morning, sitting in his office and brooding over coffee and paperwork, Harry wondered whether Draco would be there that evening.

He wasn’t.

_“I must be missing something,” the young man says. He glares at her, but then his face softens. “Come on, Rita,” he wheedles. “There must be something more. You’re so clever - you managed the transformation all by yourself, you can help me … you’ve got to let me know what I’m doing wrong.”_

_There’s desperation in his voice she hasn’t heard before. Her instinct is to fly at it, feed off it, find the story behind it. She wants to discover his weakness. She loves discovery. Today she has discovered that the young man isn’t gracing her with his company any more. He needs her. He has to be here. She has something that he wants, and she revels in it._

_“I’ve got the perfect opportunity. I can finally see who he is when I’m not there,” the young man says. He leans closer to her. “I might give you a story, Rita. I might give the wizarding world a real stir. There will be headlines.”_

_She licks her lips at this, and he chuckles mirthlessly._

_“Good,” he croons. “You’re going to get me there, aren’t you Rita? You’re going to teach me the transformation, aren’t you?”_

_Then she is back in her beetle brain, her world a kaleidoscope of colour and senses. She feels his presence, watching her keenly, predatory and as intangible as smoke._

That Friday evening saw Harry sitting at the scrubbed table in the kitchen of The Burrow, while Molly Weasley brewed a cauldron of soup, made tea, brought fresh bread from the oven and kept up a steady stream of chatter. Opposite, Ron was squinting over some of Hermione’s case notes, and Hermione was answering Mrs Weasley’s questions about work and the baby (Hermione was due in three months) whilst reading through the scenarios for the Dawlish murder which Ron had compiled. Every now and then Hermione would frown slightly, looking as though she wanted some red ink and a quill. That was why Harry didn’t show her his own reports any more.

“No Sammy tonight?” he asked Ginny, who was sitting by his side and polishing cutlery with her wand.

“No,” Ginny said. She kept on shining the knife in her hand, but Harry saw her raise her eyes to her mother, who had suddenly stopped in the middle of asking Hermione about maternity leave.

“Yes, well, I expect Samantha’s very busy,” Molly said. She gave the cauldron of soup a prod, and a plume of greenish steam rose up from it. “Dinner’s almost ready. Ginny, could you go and get your father, please?”

Ginny merely placed her knife on the table and left the kitchen. Harry shot a look of apology after her.

“I do think that Ginny is coming to her senses about Samantha,” Mrs Weasley said as soon as Ginny was out of the room. “The time apart gave her some perspective, I think.”

Hermione frowned at Ron, who raised an eyebrow back.

“I get the impression they’re very happy together,” Harry said firmly.

Mrs Weasley cast him a fond look. “I think they’re realising that it just won’t work in the long run.”

Harry caught Hermione’s eye, and Hermione pursed her lips and looked away. Ron mouthed the word ‘children’ at Harry, who stayed silent. It wasn’t his place to comment, and he didn’t want to upset Mrs Weasley who was, of course, the closest to a mother he had. 

 

“We had a fight,” Ginny told Harry later that evening, after supper. Harry had followed her when Ginny slipped outside. It was a very clear night, and cold. Harry loved the stars at The Burrow. Because they were no nearby large towns to pollute the night sky with light, the stars could always be seen clearly when there were no clouds. It reminded Harry of Hogwarts and of home. 

“Right,” Harry said. “Okay.”

He cast a Warming Charm upon their bench, and conjured one of the bluebell flames that Hermione had been so fond of in school. He watched Ginny peering out from behind her hair, worn loose. She would talk if she wanted to.

As he waited, Harry thought of Draco, who had not been back all week. He could understand it if they they’d had a fight – he wished they had and he could decide that Draco was angry and that he would come back when he had calmed down. That would be normal, understandable. But instead things had been as fine as they ever were, and Draco had gone. It wasn’t unusual for Draco to stay away for long periods of time: about six months ago he had been away for nearly two months, and the newspapers had speculated that the Malfoy heir was planning on marrying the Russian heiress with whom he was spending so much time.

Nothing had come of it. Draco had appeared one evening and had not gone back to the manor at all for more than a month, and Elisabetta had returned to Russia with a Frenchman on her arm.

Harry hadn’t asked and Draco hadn’t answered. Harry had got used to Draco hogging his side of the bed only to roll across to the side of the bed Harry was about to get in on (Harry was convinced that Draco went to bed half an hour before him each night solely for this purpose). He’d got used to waking up in the mornings with Draco pressed against him, had got used to fights and kisses and sex.

He’d begun to get used to the feeling that this was going to last.

And then Draco hadn’t been there when Harry got home one night. He’d sauntered back a week later as though nothing had happened, and once more Harry hadn’t asked and Draco hadn’t answered.

Harry sighed. Draco would be back. Probably. It wasn’t as though Harry missed him.

Ginny’s sigh echoed Harry’s own, and Harry was a little startled, having forgotten why they were out here in the first place.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Sammy and I will be fine. We just fought about … well, for once Mum’s actually not far wrong.”

Mrs Weasley had talked about Hermione and Ron’s baby all through supper. About how nice it was that the baby would be so similar in age to Percy’s daughter, and how important it was to have a family while you were young enough to enjoy them. 

“Does Sammy want kids?” Harry asked. 

Ginny nodded again. “I do, too. But Mum’s wrong. We’re not going to split up so that we can find husbands to get us pregnant. We want to have children together.” She cast a quick glance at Harry. “Well, you know, not _together_ together, because that’s just impossible. But there are options, and that’s what we fought about.”

“Well if there are options then you two will find a way,” Harry said. He swallowed. “It’s obvious – to everyone – how good you are together.”

Ginny snorted. “Not to Mum.” But she settled her head against Harry’s shoulder, and Harry could feel her tension leaving her.

“She’s just … she wants what’s best for you, and she’s scared of what she doesn’t understand.”

He felt Ginny’s huff of laughter. “Goodness, Harry. Are you sleeping with an Agony Aunt? Something’s rubbing off on you!”

Harry had a brief vision of Draco rubbing against him, and the laughter died in his throat.

Just then someone came out if the shadows round the side of the house. Harry squinted to make them out, and realised as he made out the small stature and long golden-blonde hair that it was Sammy. 

He nudged Ginny, who sat up and then stood up when she saw who it was.

“Sammy!” Harry saw Ginny’s hands ball into fists at her sides, and knew that it was to stop them shaking.

Sammy came over to them, until she was close enough that Harry could see she was biting her lip. She stopped a few feet away and looked at Ginny, who looked back. Harry recognised but could not read the unspoken conversation between them. Arthur and Molly and Ron and Hermione did exactly the same.

Suddenly Ginny gave a small laugh and took a step forwards, and she and Sammy were hugging tightly. Harry got up to leave them to it.

“No, wait.” Sammy spoke into Ginny’s hair. “Did you ask him?”

Ginny pulled away. “No.”

“Ask me what?” Harry asked.

Sammy tilted her head, considering, and Ginny tugged on her hand. “No.”

More unspoken conversation.

“Nothing,” Sammy said at last.

 

_The cat arches its back, stretches, and transforms. For the first time there is nothing guarded in the young man’s face. He grins as freely as a school boy. “Yes,” he says, practically dancing with the delight of it. “Rita, you wonder. I’ve done it!” He grabs her hand and then, astonishingly, presses a kiss against her cheek. He pulls a face. “Urgh,” he says, and then laughs again._

_After a minute the laughter fades. The young man looks tired._

_“I just hope,” he begins, but then shakes his head. She catches a flash of whiskers on his cheek. “I don’t know if it will be enough. If I’m enough.”_

_Rita blinks when he has left. She has no idea what he was talking about._

On Monday morning Harry arrived at work to find a large smoke-grey cat curled up on his desk – right on top of his Dawlish case notes, in fact. He looked down at it, and the cat looked back at him for a long moment, its stare unblinking. Then the cat appeared to lose interest in him. It stretched carelessly, then got to its feet and sprang with lithe grace onto Harry’s chair.

“Oh no you don’t,” Harry muttered, picking the cat up by its scruff and dropping it onto the floor. The cat yowled and stalked out of the office, its long tail swishing.

The next time Harry saw the cat it was sitting on Ginny’s desk, washing itself very publicly, seeming not at all bothered by its audience of several Aurors.

“I think it looks more like a Montgomery,” Gordon Wright was saying.

“Is it a boy, then?” Amy asked. “Have you checked?”

“Well he’s not exactly being shy about it, is he?” Ron said, gesturing to the cat’s private parts, which he was licking with enthusiasm.

Ginny snorted. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t if you could,” she said to Ron.

Ron’s ears went pink.

“What about Smoky?” 

“I know – Smog!” Gordon looked very pleased with his idea. “Cause it’s a smoke coloured moggy, see?” The cat stopped washing itself and sat up, surveying the crowd it had attracted.

“Don’t be silly,” Ginny said. “He’s far too refined for Smog.” She looked the cat in the eyes. Like it had done to Harry, it gazed implacably back. “I think he should be called … Pharaoh.” 

The name had an air of finality about it. Harry opened his mouth to tell everyone that they weren’t keeping the cat, but then closed it again.

The cat looked faintly smug.

Ginny looked triumphant.

Harry felt resigned.

“We don’t know where it’s come from,” he said. “For all we know, it’s an Unregistered Animagus come to spy on us.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I think you’ve been watching too much of that Muggle telly,” she said. “Anyway, you can just do a quick check – you know the spell for identifying an Animagus, don’t you?”

“No need,” Ron said, smartly. “Did the check as soon as I saw it.”

Harry caught his eye, knowing that he and Ron were both thinking about Scabbers. He sighed. If Ron said the cat checked out, then that was that. “Fine. Amy, I want you to get in contact with the animal shelter and make sure no one is missing a cat like this,” he said. “If he’s really a stray, then we’ll keep him.”

Amy nodded, looking serious. Harry turned away, satisfied. Amy was thorough but unimaginative, and now that she had something to do he could get the rest of them brainstorming for leads on the Dawlish case.

“Right, everyone. Back to work.”

“Oh well,” Ron said to Harry as the group shuffled out of Ginny’s cubicle, Pharaoh clasped tightly in Amy’s arms. “At least Pharaoh’s a better name than Pigwidgeon.”

 

By lunchtime, it felt like the frown was permanently etched on Harry’s face. The conversation had been going round in round in circles for the last hour. Their suspect list included former Death Eaters, disgruntled Ministry employees, the criminals that Dawlish had managed to convict, and the families of those who had suffered at the hands of the ones he hadn’t. There were hundreds of leads, and every time they exhausted one, two or three new possibilities sprang up.

“Bloody man was just too unpopular,” Ron muttered. He was looking decidedly green. 

“You all right?” Harry asked. 

Ron shrugged. “I’ve got one hell of a headache,” he admitted. “Feels like I’ve gone through a Memory Charm backwards.”

“It’s all that beer,” Gordon said, unhelpfully. Harry glared at him. 

“Ron, get yourself to the Nurse, see if she’s got a Potion for you. The rest of you, let’s take a break for lunch, then I want you all out following up the new leads.”

With a sigh, he made his way to his office, rolling his shoulders as he did, thinking unenthusiastically of his mound of paperwork. Sinking into his chair, he reached for the first file. The bloody cat was sitting on his desk again, purring obnoxiously. Harry’s hand stilled. Sticking out from under the smoky grey fur, was a familiar yellow padded envelope. 

There was another photograph.

This one was of Harry and Hermione, and had been taken when they’d met for lunch one of the times when Ron was working overtime on the Vampire case. The photographer had been situated to the side, and the photo was a clear shot of Hermione’s profile; its focus her pregnant stomach. Harry’s skin went clammy with fear and rage as he looked back at the picture, the curve of Hermione’s face, the exposition position. Harry clenched his jaw. He would find whoever it was. He would make sure that they couldn’t threaten his friends again. He had to. 

Harry was not surprised to come back to an empty house that evening. He told himself that he didn’t hope to hear anyone other than Kreacher when he opened the front door.

“Evening, Kreacher,” he shouted.

Kreacher appeared with a Pop and, for some reason, with a can of tuna in his hand.

“Master Harry is wanting Kreacher?” the elf asked. He frowned at Harry. “Master Harry is taking off his shoes.”

“Yes, of course,” Harry said quickly, toeing off his shoes. Kreacher immediately picked them up and put them on the shoe-rack. The can of tuna hung suspended in mid-air.

“So, er, are we having tuna for supper?” Harry asked.

Kreacher straightened. “Is Master wanting tuna?”

Harry didn’t really have much opinion on tuna. “Er, well, if that’s what you’re cooking then that’s fine.”

The House elf looked troubled. “Kreacher was not planning on cooking tuna, but Kreacher can do so if Master desires.”

Harry shook his head. “No, cook whatever you’d planned to.”

Kreacher nodded, looked inquisitively at Harry for a moment, and then disappeared. The can of tuna disappeared with him.

Harry stood, bemused, in the darkened hall of Grimmauld Place, staring at the walls until he could feel them pressing in against him. For a chest-clawing moment he wanted to fling himself in the Floo and go to Ron and Hermione’s or Ginny and Sammy’s. Anything to be _somewhere_ that wasn’t here, somewhere where there were people.

He wasn’t invited, and although he knew he could turn up at any of the Weasleys’ without any notice and be welcomed, he thought it was a bit pathetic to suddenly need their company. He’d only just seen Ron and Ginny at work, anyway.

Maybe he should have taken Pharaoh home with him? The cat had given him another of its implacable stares as he’d left that evening. 

Harry snorted. He didn’t even _like_ cats. He ought to buy himself a dog.

He was thinking too much. Abruptly, Harry jerked off his cloak and headed into the Blacks’ library. They might have something good on illegal surveillance spells. Harry wanted to know how the mystery photographer had taken those pictures of him.

He worked steadily through the evening, pausing only for Kreacher’s delicious and tuna-free meal, and by the time Harry went to bed that night his head was spinning with an oil-slick of dark spells, any of which could be used to sap his privacy.

That night he dreamed of shadows. The shadows wrapped themselves around him, at first like oblivion, but then closer, squeezing, until Harry’s chest was crushed and the pressure made him see stars, flashing out beyond the constricting shadowy nothingness. His heart raced, and he tried to shout out, but nothing happened. Panic built: no one could hear him, he couldn’t breathe, he was going to die like this, drowned in shadows, caught in a web of nothing.

Upon waking it took him long gasping seconds to remember that it had been a dream. Panting on the bed, Harry became aware of sounds – his own breath, and low murmuring, coupled with touch. He was being held by something – some _one_ far more substantial than shadow.

“Sh,” Draco was whispering, hands rubbing circles on Harry’s shoulders, breath warm against the curve of Harry’s neck.

Harry shifted, turning in Draco’s grip, needing to _see_ , his heart still hammering with blind panic, even as he tried to process that he was awake, he was safe. He was not alone.

Draco’s fingers were touching Harry’s face now, smoothing across his forehead, tracing his cheekbones. Harry closed his eyes. Breathed.

“Sh,” Draco said again. “It was just a dream. I’ve got you.”

Harry opened his eyes again – he had to see that this was Draco, eyes silver in the darkened room, hands gentling, voice soothing. He reached out and touched the back of Draco’s neck. Draco’s eyelids fluttered, and his fingers stilled.

“You were just dreaming,” he said again.

Harry moved closer to him, felt his leg brush against Draco’s, and felt their bodies align. “I know.” He stretched his fingers up from the top of Draco’s spine, over the base of his skull. He felt Draco mirror his action, hand reaching up to toy with the curled hair at the nape of Harry’s neck.

“You’re here,” Harry murmured. He felt very tired, and very warm. The adrenaline from his dream was settling back down, so that he felt his senses dampened by lethargy. It was quiet, peaceful, soft. All the things that Draco, historically, was not. And yet here he was. Harry’s brain was too tired to try to make sense of it. 

“I’m here,” he heard Draco say. “I promise. I’m here.”

Harry smiled. He was asleep. He was dreaming, surely. “I missed you,” he said.

He felt Draco stiffen – relaxed muscles tensed in his shoulders – and Harry had to open his eyes again. Draco was still there, looking at him, face soft and open. Then it fell into its usual lines, and a smirk ghosted across his lips.

“Course you did,” Draco said. “What’s not to miss?” He gestured down the length of his body, and Harry laughed.

“Prat,” he said, closing his eyes again, breathing in the scent of skin. He felt a hand in his hair as he fell asleep.

The next morning Harry woke up feeling sated in a way he hadn’t for a long time, despite the lingering memory of the dream.

He looked around: he’d woken to an empty bed, and for a moment he thought that Draco in the night had been a dream as well. He got up, went to the bathroom, and couldn’t help the smile or the leap in his heart when he saw in the mirror a scrap of paper pinned to his boxer shorts.

_Had to make an early start. Will be back tonight. D_

Harry whistled as he walked into the Auror department. He was the first one in as usual, and when he made his way to his office, he found Pharaoh curled peacefully on his desk. 

“Bloody cat,” Harry muttered. He stretched out a hand and scratched Pharaoh’s head. The cat arched, and pressed itself into Harry’s hand, getting to its feet to allow Harry to stroke down its body. Then, the cat leapt nimbly from Harry’s desk and sauntered off, probably to find somebody else’s desk to shed upon.

 

“So what was that about last night?” Harry asked Draco as soon as he got back to Grimmauld Place after work.

Draco, who had been playing chess with Kreacher, turned to Harry, the play of expressions across his face too quick for Harry to name.

“What can I say?” Draco said, half-drawling. “You’re surprisingly sweet when you’re asleep.”

Harry glanced at Kreacher, whose bat-like ears sagged before he Disapparated.

He shot Draco a look. “As I remember, you were surprisingly sweet when I was asleep, too.”

Was it Harry’s imagination, or did Draco look slightly hunted for a moment? Then he twisted his face into an exaggeration of how he’d looked at school.

“So sorry, Potter. It was an accident, I assure you. Won’t happen again.”

“That’s a shame,” Harry said, moving closer. “I rather liked it.”

“Did you?” Draco looked considering. “You’re welcome to express your appreciation.”

As Harry closed the gap between them, he thought of how unusual for them it was to have sex because of shared closeness and … and what, affection? … rather than lust and irritation and violence.

He gripped Draco’s shoulders tighter as he reminded himself that he couldn’t get too attached to this.

_“It’s actually working,” the blonde man says. There’s a look of bewildered wonder that crosses his face which Rita cannot clutch at, which she has never written. “It was all so easy – the Memory Charm on Weasley, _everything_.”_

_He rocks back in his seat. “It’s so hard to decide what’s right, though,” he says. “I mean, which would you choose, Rita? The chance of love or the certainty of security? How do you ever know?”_

_He closes his eyes and a smile plays at his lips. “It’s already worth it,” he says._

Something was wrong.

Harry was worried by his own happiness. Since the nightmare, Draco had not spent a single night at the manor – in fact he hadn’t mentioned his parents at all, and while he and Harry had teased and ribbed, had thrown barbs and had pushed each other into walls, onto the floor, pinned each other to the bed, had been rough with each other, there had been none of the anger, nothing of the burning desire to hurt and cause pain that had previously characterised their relationship.

They were becoming, after almost a year of being together in some form, a couple, and it scared Harry.

He was scared, most of all, by how much he wanted it, how much he wanted Draco. He couldn’t let himself believe that it would last, because experience had shown him that it wouldn’t, and Harry didn’t think he’d bear it.

But for now, Harry was happier than he could remember being, despite the nagging fear of the photographs. Harry had been working late one night, frowning over witness statements, trying to connect anything that had happened in the Dawlish case to anything that was going on now – the four photographs, hidden in their drawer, burnt into his retinas. As he worked he’d been idly stroking Pharaoh from time to time. Harry found himself fond of the cat, mainly because the cat seemed to prefer him to any other Auror in the department. It was always Harry’s desk which Pharaoh was asleep on when Harry came in in the mornings; it was always Harry’s legs that Pharaoh rubbed himself around in greeting. With everyone else Pharaoh allowed their petting as though he were doing them a favour: when Harry stroked him, Pharaoh purred.

“Sod it,” he’d said at last to Pharaoh. Pharaoh looked disgruntled; Harry had stopped stroking him. Harry started up again, and listened to the cat’s loud purrs. “You’re a softy, really, aren’t you?” Harry said. “I’m going to leave you to catch rats, or whatever you do when everyone’s gone home. I’m knackered. I’m going to go home and see if Kreacher will make me bacon and eggs for supper.”

Pharaoh had yawned at him, then had sauntered out of the Auror department, presumably to wander the deserted ministry corridors in search of vermin.

When Harry had locked up and gone home, it was to the sizzling scent of grilling bacon and frying eggs, and to Draco saying sharply, “I can do it, Kreacher. Cooking’s much easier than Potions, let me tell you,” while Kreacher tugged at his ears in consternation.

The eggs had been runny and the bacon had been burnt. Harry hadn’t cared.

He told himself that he was being stupid, that he should just enjoy himself while Draco was in such a good mood, and to take as much advantage as he could to shore him up for the times ahead when Draco left. Harry tried to ignore the crushing sensation in his chest when he thought of this.

He had the dream three times in two weeks, and each time Draco was there, muttering sleepy reassurances. The waking was almost worth the dream.

“I’m going to the Weasleys’ this evening.”

Harry saw Draco’s back stiffen and knew, knew before they’d even started, that _here_ was the end of it, the conversation that would mark the end of the too-happy last few weeks.

“That’s fine. Mother has been asking for me to come over. I might as well go tonight,” Draco said.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Harry shrugged out of his robes, and went to pull out a jumper from his chest of drawers. He could feel Draco watching him.

“There’s a new girl Mother wants me to meet,” Draco said. The statement hung in the air, as though Draco expected something of him. Harry didn’t know what.

“I bet there is,” he said at last. His bones felt tired. He’d known what was coming. Surely knowing what was coming made it easier to hear?

“Astoria Greengrass,” Draco said. He was perched on the foot of the bed, making a show of winding up his watch, frowning at the tiny dial.

“Right. You going to end up marrying her, then?”

Draco gave a brittle laugh. “I suppose I’ll have to marry one of them sooner or later.”

Harry shut the drawer with more force than was necessary. “I suppose you will. Good little pureblood and all that.” His voice sounded savage, but Draco didn’t seem to notice.

“Exactly. We can’t all be half-bloods and Weasleys, now, can we?”

Something inside Harry twisted and broke. He was too _tired_ for this. He hated the closed, pinched look on Draco’s face, knew that he was making it worse, didn’t know how to fix it. He wanted to punch something, wanted to destroy. He wanted to sit down and cry and be comforted.

“God, why do we have to do this?” he said.

Draco, who had turned away, looked back at him, and his posture seemed to sag. “Do what, Potter? Why do we have to fight? That’s all we can do – fight or fuck.”

“I thought we were doing quite well for a while there.”

Draco ran a hand through his hair – a mannerism he must have got from Harry.

“We were,” he said, voice gentler now. “But it’s not going to last, is it?”

“Only because you get bored and leave,” Harry said.

“Only because I get sensible and leave,” Draco shot back. “I have to marry, and it’s not as though you’re going to tell those Weasleys of yours that you’re in love with me, are you?”

“I …” Harry began. “I, what? What do you mean, in love with you?”

Draco shrugged. He took a step towards Harry, then paused, looking awkward. “Aren’t you, Harry?” His voice was too soft, and Harry gulped, feeling perilously close to an answer that he wasn’t ready to think about.

Draco’s face was too close. “You should hate me, Potter,” he said, hissing. “You should always hate me.” Then he kissed Harry, a brutal press of lips and teeth, before marching from the room.

Harry went to follow him, feeling lust and rage and helplessness welling up inside, but in the end he stormed downstairs, slamming the door to make it clear to Draco he was leaving, and Apparated to The Burrow.

 

Harry knew he wasn’t the best company over supper, but he was with his family, and he was allowed to be terse or miserable. Mrs Weasley took one look at him, gave him an extra hard hug, and told him that she was going to whip up a treacle tart for pudding. While Mr Weasley helped Molly in the kitchen, Ron suggested that they listen to the replay of a Puddlemere versus Portree match, and Hermione sat pressed up against Harry on the sofa, a solid, comforting presence. Sammy and Ginny arrived a little later and added colourful commentary to the match. They sat at the floor, leaning back against the sofa, and Harry watched Ginny plait a section of her hair in with Sammy’s without Sammy realising, so that when Mrs Weasley called for them to come and eat, Sammy got to her feet and yelped, tumbling back down on top of Ginny on the floor.

“Shall Ginny and I do the washing up?” Sammy asked, as the last of the treacle tart was finished up. 

“I couldn’t let you do the dishes, dear,” Mrs Weasley replied. “You’re a guest in this house.”

Sammy looked a little crestfallen. Although Mrs Weasley had spoken kindly, Harry could see that she was making it clear that Sammy was not considered part of the family. He could only imagine the sort of reception Draco would get if Harry brought him to a Weasley gathering. Draco had, after all, caused Bill’s scars. His father had nearly killed Ginny. And Draco would never apologise, he would never try to be accepted by the Weasleys. It was obvious to everybody that Sammy and Ginny loved each other and made each other happy. The same could not be said for Harry and Draco. If Harry tried to make Draco part of the extended Weasley family he could lose both Draco and them.

“I’ll wash up, then, shall I?” Ginny said.

“I’ll help.” Ginny shot Harry a grateful look.

As they set the dishes to clean themselves, and levitated the crockery from the table, Harry caught Ginny looking at him. 

“What’s up?” he asked.

Ginny looked sad. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

“Nothing is wrong.” Harry sent the dish that had held the treacle tart to the sink, and it landed with a clatter.

Ginny stared at Harry for long enough that his skin felt itchy. “You’re seeing someone, aren’t you?” she said at last.

Harry looked at her, with her sleeves pulled up and her hair tucked behind her ears. He had never been good at lying to Ginny.

“Sort of, yeah.”

She exhaled. “I thought so. You’ve been so distant. We were worried.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, focusing on the cutlery he was sending back to their drawers. “Not serious or anything.”

Ginny grabbed at his wand hand, pulled it down, and waited for Harry to look at her. “You never could lie to me, Harry.”

He smiled slightly. “No, I couldn’t. But I really don’t want to talk about it, Ginny. It’s complicated.”

She nodded. “It’s a bloke, isn’t it?”

Harry froze. Then he tried to wrench himself back out of Ginny’s grip, but Ginny held on hard, and Harry couldn’t free himself without hurting her. Her expression didn’t change.

He let his head drop.

Ginny let go of him, and then punched him on the chest. “You bastard,” she spat. “How dare you be ashamed. Sammy and I didn’t go through everything we did for you to be ashamed of being gay.”

She tried to hit him again, and Harry hugged her to him, pinning her arms, feeling her chest rising and falling in rapid, indignant gasps.

“I’m not ashamed, Ginny,” he said. “Or, I’m ashamed of me, and I’m ashamed of him, but the fact that we’re both blokes is about the only thing I’m not ashamed of.”

He held her still for almost a minute, before Ginny nodded against him. They stayed silent and pressed together a little while longer, until Harry heard shouting coming from the next room.

Ginny wheeled around, her wand appearing in her hand. “That’s Sammy.”

Harry grabbed her arm. “And your mum.” Together they went into the drawing room.

Harry had often compared both Ginny and Mrs Weasley and Ginny and Sammy. Now he was struck at how similar and different Mrs Weasley and Sammy were. Both women were facing each other, leaning forwards, Mrs Weasley with her finger pointed. Both of their faces were red with fury, and both of them shaking with suppressed emotion. Harry remembered that Mrs Weasley had killed for Ginny, knew that Sammy would do the same. 

“How dare you suggest such a thing!” Mrs Weasley was screaming. 

“It’s a perfectly reasonable option,” Sammy was saying. Her slight frame shook, and anyone who had not met Sammy before might think she was on the verge of tears. Harry, who knew better, wondered if he should break up the fight before he ended up having to arrest one of them. He looked at Mr Weasley, who was standing behind his wife, his arms hanging loosely by his side. Harry knew that Mr Weasley hadn’t reared seven children without knowing when to intervene in an argument.

“You would raise children without a father?” Mrs Weasley’s voice filled the small living room.

“I would raise children with Ginny, and they’d be lucky to have both of us. It’s more than lots of children have.”

“And what about him?” Mrs Weasley shouted. “How dare you ask him to father a child he couldn’t be a father to?”

“He’d be able to be as much of a father as he wanted. We’d love him to be a part of our family.” Sammy’s face was crimson; Harry could sense her magic prickling on her skin, barely held back. He fingered his wand.

Beside Harry, Ginny gave a little gasp.

“You obviously haven’t thought this through.” Mrs Weasley folded her arms.

“We’ve been talking about this for months.”

On the sofa Ron was watching with a fascinated interest, while Hermione merely looked as though she was considering hard, her hands wandering up and down her rounded stomach.

“I can’t believe you’d be so selfish. I can’t believe you’d try to ruin Harry’s chances of settling down and being happy with a family of his own.”

At the mention of his name, Harry’s stomach jolted. He glanced at Ginny, who had gone white.

“Harry is never going to marry Ginny!” Sammy screamed.

“Not if you don’t let them have a chance,” Molly cried.

Then there was a flurry of movement. Arthur Weasley moved forward, putting his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Enough,” he said. At the same time, Ginny went to Sammy, grabbing her hands. Sammy’s face crumpled and she bowed her head so that her forehead rested on Ginny’s collar bone. Her shoulders shook.

Harry, still standing in the doorway, looked across the room to where Hermione and Ron were sitting on the sofa. Their looks of shock were identical to his. 

 

Harry was in bed when Draco came into the room, his formal shirt untucked and open at the neck. Harry was surprised to see him, but didn’t think that mentioning his surprise would help this delicate balance that was his and Draco’s relationship. 

“How did it go?” he asked. Draco paused in the act of undressing and grimaced. 

“Athtorwia Gweengwath hath a lithp,” he said.

Harry winced.

“How were the Weasleys?”

It was the first time Draco had ever asked about them. Harry considered saying, ‘My lesbian best friends want to have my children,’ but decided against it.

“Fine,” he said instead.

Draco slid into bed, making a face at the cold sheets, and pressing his cold body into Harry’s warm one.

“I’m glad you don’t lisp,” he said to Harry’s neck.

Harry half-turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

Draco grinned. “Yeah. If you were a pure-blooded girl you’d be perfectly marriageable, Potter.”

Harry didn’t want to work out whether this was an insult or a compliment of some twisted sort, whether it was a way of Draco saying he wanted them to be serious, or a way of Draco’s of reminding him that they could never have a real relationship. So he didn’t. Draco had started to laugh, so Harry put his energy into shutting him up.

 

Harry got to work early on Monday morning, thinking that he would spend some time on the mysterious photographs before the others got in. For once Pharaoh wasn’t on Harry’s desk, and Harry almost missed him. Instead there was a yellow padded envelope. His hands were trembling as he opened it – he’d known as soon as he saw it. He would have liked the reassurance of Pharaoh, purring and demanding strokes, by his side.

When he saw the photograph it was almost a relief. In it, Harry was alone. It wasn’t a usual photograph, but a clipping of Harry cut from the Daily Prophet. Scrawled next to the head and shoulders shot of Harry was the word ‘next’.

Harry recognised the handwriting. He had seen it often enough on reports and case notes. Whoever had sent the picture had used a handwriting charm, and they’d copied Dawlish’s handwriting.

There was a creak from the door. Harry looked up, thinking to see Pharaoh making his way inside.

The curse hit him full in the face. Immediately, Harry felt his lungs compress. He was pinned to his chair, struggling for air, his fingers scrabbling for purchase against the smooth wood of his desk. He tried to fight the curse wandlessly, but without knowing what it was it proved impossible. 

His assailant took a step forward, and had Harry had air to do so, he would have gasped. Amy Scott stood framed in the doorway, her wand outstretched and unwavering. Gone was the expression of the girl who had sobbed at a cat’s funeral. Her face was hard, her eyes cold.

“Amy?” Harry wheezed. The crushing pain lanced through him again, and he realised: he was in his nightmare. It felt as though the shadows were getting closer. Harry drew in a deep breath that made his chest hurt, and once more tried to grope uselessly for his wand. Instant pain jolted down his ribs and he had to lie still, breathing in tiny slow gasps, all the time thinking of some way to get out of this alive.

If only he could _think_. There had to be something he could do. He couldn’t end here, not now. Not after Dumbledore and King’s Cross. He had come back to live – for a second chance at life and death. He had thought, the second time, that he would be ready. 

He wasn’t dead yet, though. He had to stall Amy somehow. He gathered his strength.

“You sent the photographs?”

She laughed, harshly. “My Uncle was a photographer,” she said. Her voice came quickly, and Harry felt a small spark of triumph. She was ready to talk. “He taught me lots about taking photos. Every summer we’d spend hours taking all sorts of pictures, in all sorts of lights and poses. I loved taking pictures of people who didn’t know they were being photographed.” Her voice turned dreamy. “My uncle used to say I had a real talent for it.”

“I can’t say I liked your pictures,” Harry gasped.

Amy snarled and flicked her wand. An invisible force slammed into his chest. He fell from his chair and hit the floor with a thud. A wave of nausea washed over him, and he tried to concentrate on the texture of the carpeted floor, the unyielding ground, the scent of furniture polish until he could plan again. The sickness ebbed, but nothing came. 

Amy spoke. “You were meant to keep us safe,” she said, her voice full of hatred. “You were the Chosen One. When You Know Who came, my mother used to tell us we’d all be all right. Harry Potter would save us all.”

Harry forced another breath into his lungs, feeling pain radiate through his body as he did.

“You’re a half-blood. Like me,” he said. The effort caused another tide of nausea. 

“I’m nothing like you,” Amy spat. Her voice was shrill but her wand still pointed steadily at Harry. “We were nobodies, not important enough for fancy protection. The Auror that came said we would be safe, but he lied.” Her face contorted. “I watched my family’s souls being sucked from their bodies because we weren’t important enough to save.” She laughed, a horrid sound, as she pushed more power into the spell.

Harry could not move. He couldn’t think of what to do, could only lie helpless and think of what he should have done. Unknowing, he began to bargain.

He’d tell the Weasleys, he decided. He’d stick up for Ginny and Sammy. He’d agree to help them have a baby – but only, he realised, if he talked to Draco about it first. That’s what he’d do. He’d tell Draco that it was all or nothing. He’d stop having half a relationship, stop being half-ashamed, half in love. Nothing by halves. All or nothing. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, ‘all, all, all.’

He couldn’t open his eyes again, and behind the lids the world was swimming, blurring. 

“So I learnt,” Amy was saying, sounding far away now. “I learnt everything I could so that I could make you, and that lying Auror,” (Dawlish, Harry mistily realised) “Make you both live and die in fear, the way my family did.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Harry tried to say. “We did what we could.” He had died for people like Amy and her family once, but it seemed that he would have to do it again. The offices were deserted still, there was no hope of being discovered … if only one of the lazy gits could come in early.

Forcing himself through the burning in his chest he manage a croak, then a weak sound, before his voice died. Harry tried to muster a last scrap of magic – anything, but it was no use. He was swamped in the asphyxiating shadows; the darkness was drawing in, closer and closer. Something flickered in Harry’s brain. The shadows were definitely moving closer. Then one really was moving – smoke grey, speeding towards him, then a twist and a change. The cat grew, straightened, still barrelling forwards, and Harry thought he really was dying now, because in a skid of newly-lengthened limbs, Draco was pushing Amy aside with a furious yowl, then crouching over him, grey eyes fierce and angry.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Harry,” he snarled. “Don’t you bloody well dare.”

*

“Draco?”

Harry woke up at St Mungo’s to Ron’s face swimming before his eyes.

Ron frowned. “I should bloody well hope not, mate. What on earth were you thinking about the ferret for?”

“Ron, shut up,” Ginny said. Her face was red and blotchy. “He’s only just woken up.”

“It was Amy,” Harry managed. His voice was little more than a rasp, and the words burned the back of his throat.

Ginny’s eyes went dark. “We know – we found her tied up where you left her. I don’t know how you managed to overpower her, the state you were in.”

Harry coughed. Ron picked up a glass of water that was by the bedside and wordlessly tilted it to Harry’s lips. Harry swallowed some, felt a trickle run down his chin.

Ron snorted. “I know you’re good, but that was amazing,” he said. “If you hadn’t Apparated yourself to St Mungo’s you’d have been dead in minutes.”

Harry tried to shake his head and found he couldn’t. “But …”

“Ron and I have to go,” Ginny said loudly. “We have an interrogation.” She rolled up her sleeves.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Harry said. 

Ron rolled his eyes. “I think we learned from the best at that one, mate.” He clapped Harry on the shoulder – Harry winced – and began to pull together all the notes and the photographs that had been spread out in the room.

“I’m leaving Pharaoh here to keep you company,” Ginny said, and Harry noticed for the first time the smoke-grey not-a-cat curled up at the foot of the bed. She leaned forward to kiss Harry’s cheek, and gave him a knowing smile before she left.

As soon as the door was closed, Pharaoh sprang off the bed, and Draco knelt by Harry’s side. He stared down at Harry, and Harry, remembering his bargains when he thought he was dying, summoned his strength to raise his hand enough to touch Draco’s face.

Draco’s eyes fluttered shut. “Shit,” he said, weakly.

Harry’s laugh stuck in his chest, and Draco had to give him more water. “I think ‘shit’ about covers it,” he said at last.

“We’ve got some talking to do,” Draco said, his fingers kneading small circles of pleasure-pain on Harry’s shoulders.

“We certainly have, _Pharaoh_ ,” Harry said. His eyelids were heavy, though, and any talk would have to wait for later. Desperately he tried to stay awake, but he couldn’t keep focused. He reached out, wanting something concrete to cling to, afraid that he would slip back into the nothingness if he closed his eyes.

“Sh,” he heard. “I’m here. I promise.”

And that was enough.

 

Draco was there when woke again, glaring daggers at the rest of the Weasleys who had congregated by Harry’s bedside in the meantime.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs Weasley said, her eyes red-rimmed and watery. “Thank goodness you’re all right.” She glanced at Draco and then looked away as though she was afraid to stare too long. “This person says that you want him to be here.”

“I do,” Harry said firmly, feeling Draco’s hand squeezing his own. 

“Well, then, that’s all that matters,” Mr Weasley said, an air of finality to his tone. 

It was that simple. Although, Harry supposed, that was probably one of the advantages of nearly dying. It made coming out to your adopted family seem a lot easier.

 

When they got home, Draco pulled Harry to bed straight away, easing him out of his clothes with an air of reverence that had never been there before. Draco got into bed with him so that they were pressed skin to skin, with nothing between them. Harry breathed. This was it: this was where the layers of secrets and things unsaid would be stripped away, discarded. Whatever was underneath would be all they were left with, and they would have to see if it was enough.

“Why?” he asked, starting with the most obvious question.

Draco pressed his mouth to Harry’s shoulder. “Would you believe I wanted to prove myself to you. I know you look down on me for not having a job. I wanted to show you that I could do something because of my own talent.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “You were spying.”

Draco shrugged, although they were pressed so close that Harry felt rather than saw it. “A little bit. Besides, you used to spy on me, when we were at school.”

“I had a good reason!”

Draco’s eyes flashed. “So did I. I never knew where I stood with you. I had to get you any way I could.”

“Despite buggering off to the manor for weeks at a time.” There was more hurt in Harry’s voice than he would liked to have shown. Although he supposed they were being honest, at least.

Draco was quiet. Harry breathed in, out. Once, twice.

“If you hadn’t nearly died, we’d be turning this into an argument.”

Three times, four. “I know.”

“I … I never wanted to get too close,” Draco said at last. “I thought it would be easier if we still hated each other a bit.” 

Harry let his fingers run up and down Draco’s side. A light touch – showing, hopefully, that he was not judging. That Draco could tell the truth now, and Harry wouldn’t mind. “So that you could get married.”

“So that you could too.” 

Harry’s fingers stilled. “What?”

Draco ducked his head and spoke into the pillow. “I always thought that in the end you’d find a girl that you could introduce to the Weasleys and then get married. Have children. You know. I thought that that was how you’d be happy in the end.”

Harry stared at the back of Draco’s head. “Are you sure you’re not related to Molly Weasley?”

Draco looked up. “Only very distantly through my mother’s side,” he said, a hint of a sneer in his voice.

Laughter. “I think you’re more alike than either of you would admit.”

“I’m sure Molly Weasley would love that comparison.”

Silence. Even though they were finally having The Conversation that might well dictate the rest of their lives, Harry felt more relaxed than he had in ages. He felt more sure of Draco than he ever had, more certain of his own feelings. Sure, for the first time, that here, _here_ in Grimmauld Place where it was always cold, with a half-healed scar over his heart, in bed with his schoolboy nemesis, _with the man he was in love with_ was where he wanted to be. This was it. He’d arrived. No more longing for journey’s end. He was there.

“Don’t get married,” Harry said. “Not to some lisping Greengrass just because your mother wants you to.”

He watched Draco’s eyelids flutter closed. “I won’t,” he said. “I can’t. If nothing else, seeing you on the floor like that-”

Harry suppressed a shudder. “Don’t,” he said. “And don’t worry about me wanting to get married. All I’ve wanted is to know where I was with you – to know if we _were_ anything.”

Draco’s hands ghosted over Harry’s back, down to his backside, up to the nape of his neck. “I was trying to decide if we were worth the risk of throwing away a respectable marriage,” he said. “I might love you, but we have the potential to make each other _miserable_.”

“You might love me?” Harry’s heartbeat was painful in his chest.

Draco squeezed Harry’s thigh. “Come on, Potter, if transforming oneself into a cat on a daily basis for someone isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.” The words pressed themselves on Harry’s skin. 

Harry felt warm and centred, filled with a drowsy sort of happiness which could have come from the Potions, but which had far more to do with Draco. “We can make each other happy,” he said, an affirmation. “We’re worth the risk.”

Draco nodded into his neck. “Besides,” he said, voice light once more. “You’d miss Pharoah.”

Harry smiled sleepily, clasping Draco more tightly to him. 

“I’d miss the cat. I can’t miss you.”

“You don’t have to.”

*  
Charms had cleared the air of the scent of blood, but Harry could taste it still in the back of his throat. 

Harry had had enough of St Mungo’s after all the check ups he’d had following the attack. Now, though, he was pleased to have a good reason to visit. He stared at the bed in the centre of the room. Colours blurred in front of his eyes – red and gold and pink and white.

Ginny lay curled on her side, facing them, with Sammy leaning over her, both looking in sleepy euphoria down at the bundle nestled in Ginny’s arms.

Ginny’s smile made Harry ache, but not in the same way as before. It was not the same smile – it was her happiest smile but tempered. Awed, tender, older. There were secrets in Ginny’s smile, and though Harry did not know all of them, he knew enough.

The baby stirred, all pink skin and tiny fists. Downy tufts of dark hair, and eyes which one day might turn out to be green, but which might turn brown and who, in Harry’s opinion, really cared?

He reached back and took Draco’s hand, knowing without looking that it would be there, even as he marvelled that Draco still _was_ there every time he reached. He felt Draco take a step closer to him, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder.

“We’ll leave you to get some rest,” Draco said.

Harry kissed the three (three!) of them goodbye. “See you soon.”

He followed Draco out of the room, and then they turned right walking in the opposite direction to the exit.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked.

Draco looked amused. “We’ve got a visit to make,” he said. He carried on up the corridor, and Harry walked with him, shoulder to shoulder.

_They are sharing a chair. Sharing! A chair! Sharing a chair in her ward, in front of her bed. Rita half thinks that she is writing the article already. She can feel her quill forming words; can feel the texture of the parchment against the nib. She can taste the satisfaction, the excitement. The impact her story will bring! Her heart and quill race. She is the one to out them. It will be the story of the century._

_She grins at them. Foolish boys, coming to see her, not hiding it – although she would still have known, of course; she is an expert judge of human relationships. She is going to make every paper in the country scream their names._

_“We came to thank you,” Harry Potter says. His words come out unevenly, probably because the blond man is nuzzling at his neck._

_Rita nods. Of course he wants to thank her. She has helped the boy so much over the years – he has told her things he’d never told another person. She has taken such care in sensitively sharing the Boy Who Lived’s life with the masses._

_“Let me tell you a story,” the blond one says with his usual smirk._


End file.
